Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Picador 40th) (6 page)

I had just drained my bowl when the train rounded a bend and we both leant sideways into the curve. My elbow raised the sheet on Mr Ohno's cot and I saw underneath it several piles of what looked like tiny pieces of mattress stacked on top of one another. I sneaked another look. Sandwiches. Mr Ohno's luncheon sandwiches were stacked neatly under his bed in a repeating pattern of bread, jam, bread, honey, bread, vegemite, bread . . . They were completely dried out and didn't smell at all. I smoothed back the sheet and pretended that I hadn't seen.

— 7 —

WELCOME TO WYCHEPROOF

I
wrap the veil in brown paper and leave it in Mary's pigeonhole. She rarely checks for circulars so it will be weeks before she finds it.

I tell Mary that my marriage to Robert will be about
more
than love. It will be a modern marriage, in which Robert and I, as free and independent units of production, will implement the proven facts of scientific research. In which we will take the miniaturised world of the train and live it large, at real-life scale. Robert will grow his superior super phosphated wheats and, once the wheat has been milled, I will document his success by baking the annual test loaves in my experimental kitchen.

‘Is this you speaking or him speaking, Jeanie?'

‘It's a partnership. The one can't work without the other. It's a marriage and a special sort of partnership. You can't say he hasn't got purpose.'

‘No. I can't,' Mary said dryly.

‘And we will be together – and have some land around us. I was thinking I could plant some fruit trees. Start a bit of an orchard?'

Mary was silent for a minute then she reached out and took my hand. ‘You mustn't agree just because he asked you. Others will ask you. You may not believe it now, but they will.'

The train will stop at Wycheproof just long enough for Robert and me to disembark. It is heading for a two-day demonstration in Sea Lake and then on to Swan Hill. After that it will leave the Mallee and follow the Murray River to the orchard country around Echuca. It isn't a bad time to be leaving. The superintendent has hinted that this may be the last tour – the agriculture minister is concerned about expenditure in these ‘difficult times'.

Robert has organised our leaving in great detail. The local priest will conduct the ceremony – he has a sister who will witness for us – then our new neighbour, a Mr Ivers, will drive us out to the farm. The Wycheproof general store has filled Robert's telegraphed order and all of our linen, crockery, kitchenware and domestic staples will be ready for collection. We will do all of this in one day – leave the train, get married, collect our belongings and travel to our new home. It will be the first full day that we have spent together.

Mallee mornings don't flicker. There are no hazy beginnings, no half-light of hesitation where day meets night. The Mallee sun snaps over the horizon with the sure and sudden glow of electric light. Long sharp rays of yellow reach across the flat horizon like tentacles. I have seen this before. On a packet of Mildura raisins.
Raisins, Full of Goodness from the Sun. Eat More Raisins Every Day in Every Way.
The picture on the packet shows children frolicking in a paddock of golden wheat wearing neat shorts and knitted jumpers; the sun's rays touch them like ribbons from a maypole.

The blinds in our sleeping compartment lift methodically with every jolt of the train to let in a pulse of light. The inside of my mouth is dry from sleep. Mary snores a little above me. She has hung my wedding costume on the back of the compartment door and I watch it dancing to the movement of the train. I have made myself a suit in dove grey wool with a double lapel jacket in the French style. The lapels sit high on my chest and curve upward like the wings of a bird. There is a buttonhole that I would like to fill with a gardenia, although I imagine such a thing may be hard to come by in Wycheproof.

Mary stirs above me.

‘I have a present for you, Jean. But you can't have it until we stop.' Her voice is a little high and strained. She climbs down from her bunk to braid my hair, her eyes swimming. She winds the braids into two scrolls over each ear and pins them securely. She says these snail shells suit me better than a bun. At twenty-three I already have some grey hairs threaded through the brown. We dress and pack, both glad to be caught up in the detail of something.

My bags overflow with presents – a set of notes from Sister Crock on domestic science and modern housewifery. (‘
Everything
you'll need to know is in here.'). A Fowler's Bottling Outfit from Mr Baker (the recipe for jellied pig's trotters has been underlined). Mr Plattfuss has made me a model of the train in tin with pipe-cleaner animals peeping from the wagons. It looks like a child's toy, except, as he points out to me, for the handy bottle opener welded on to the underside. A surprising set of postcards from Mr Ohno, and a pair of gloves from Mr Talbot. The gloves are a fleshy pink and I know whenever I wear them I will be reminded of the tissue diseases of sheep.

I sit shoulder to shoulder with Mary amongst the gifts and gaze out of the window. Mary has decided that we must stay in the sleeping compartment to avoid the bad luck of seeing Robert too soon before the ceremony.

The train rolls quietly through the Mallee. There are two ways to look at the wheat. I am used to taking in a great expanse, seeing a whole paddock from fence to fence. A paddock of uniform height and colour held in by silvery wires. Or you can see it in close-up. Pick out an individual stem, follow it to its wispy beard and then let your eye flow over the sea of soft interwoven heads like a mat suspended above the ground.

It is only when you see the wheat this second way that you notice how it moves. I had thought of it as a sea, pushed about by the wind like a tide. But it is not at all like that. When you watch it close-up a field of wheat is full of whirls and dips and eddies which can slow in an instant to complete stillness. There is no logic to it. A small patch in the centre of a paddock can be thrashing while the rest moves in a slow and lazy wave.

I think it must be necessary, when you live in it, to start seeing the wheat in this close-up way. There is no point in focusing on the horizon, on what lies beyond what the eye can see; the truth of the matter is right here.

I can feel the sweat spreading out from my spine. It is fine and hot like yesterday, like the day before. Wycheproof is in the southern Mallee, on the border of the Wimmera. It lies in the centre of a shallow basin of flat country fringed with low hills. The train tracks slice through the centre of the basin dividing the land on either side. It is the only town in Victoria where the train runs along the main street. As we mount the ridge of the hill two huge wheat silos come into view; all of the buildings around them look squat in comparison. Mary has her head out of the window as we approach the station.

‘It's a lovely big station – with a rose garden.'

The train doesn't slow. We are coming in too fast. I'm anxious and perhaps a little relieved that it mightn't stop. We pass the station at a stately pace. It is deserted except for a hot old collie stretched under the shade of the verandah. The train veers sharply to the left and straightens into the main street.

Mary is excited: ‘They're going to stop here for you. Right in the centre of town!'

The main street is enormously wide. There is a road on both sides of the railway line edged with a row of shops. The train jerks and hisses to a stop opposite the post office, which is large and topped by an old-fashioned clock.

We run across the carriage from window to window, unsure which side to get out. I look up and down the train on both sides for Robert but I can't see him. He must be slow about his goodbyes. Finally Mary tugs the right side door open, jumps down and turns to help me.

‘Quick. I have something for you. Don't worry about your bags, the guard will get them.'

I want to tell Mary to slow down. I don't want to leave like this – it feels too sudden. I'm not sure anymore if I want to leave at all, but Mary is dragging me by the hand along the side of the train and we are running through a cloud of steam. The steam has settled on my face or maybe I am crying. We are in front of the cattle trucks. The train is hugely tall without a station platform in front of it. Mary calls through the slats to a stock hand and a ramp crashes down. Before the dust has settled the youngest stock hand leads out a cow. Not any cow,
our
cow – the folly cow. She shifts her weight from leg to leg, blinking in the dust and light and steam.

Mary takes her halter from the stock hand and gives it to me. She is grinning from ear to ear. ‘For you, Jean. I arranged it all with Mr Plattfuss. She'll be better off with you. She would just have ended up in a paddock somewhere. She can remind you of me. And she'll be, you know, something to love . . .'

I hold Mary tight. The ramp is pulled up and the train sounds a deep chuff – it is about to leave. Folly's halter is stiff in my hand. It is new; Mary has plaited it from baling twine. She pulls away from me and runs back to our compartment, blowing me kisses over her shoulder.

‘Write,' she calls out. ‘Write to me with all of your results!'

The door slams. I step back and look up into the windows of the train. The men wave at me from the windows of the dairy car. Mr Baker whistles through his orange whiskers. Mr Plattfuss wags a mocking finger at Folly, the startling silk of Mr Ohno's tie concertinas as he bows. Then a jolt and they all tumble sideways into each other as the train lurches off.

A rumble of steam, and the final carriage glides past. It slips away like a curtain and reveals the other side of the street where Robert is standing with his bags and cases. He is wearing a blue suit I have never seen before and squinting into the sun.

The folly cow won't budge. She watches the rear of the train snaking off up the street and lets out a long wet moo. Robert strides across the tracks. There is the sound of flyscreen doors banging shut as people go back about their business.

‘You got out of the other side.'

‘Yes. I got out of the other side.' He reaches for Folly's halter.

‘You should have told me about the cow, Jean. What am I going to do with an old scrub cow?'

‘She's not for you. She's for me – from Mary.'

Robert's face is red. Droplets of sweat glisten in his eyebrows. The suit must be hot.

Robert ties Folly to a fence behind the hardware store and carries our bags inside. I wait for him on the verandah – trying to breathe slowly and drain the heat that has risen to my face. My grey suit feels too tight and too showy. Women come and go from shop to shop, many tailed by little children. A group has gathered in front of the pharmacy several doors down. The women make a loose circle of nodding heads. They laugh loudly. I look away. A small child tumbles from the footpath onto the street. The women gather around him cooing and scolding.

The church is on a side street and the ceremony is quick. The priest's collar is too tight and he switches the Bible from hand to hand as he tugs at it. He aims his words into the hot air above our heads; I feel almost as if I can see them, coasting over the empty pews and floating down to the floor. Robert takes my hand – for the ring – but the priest pulls him up.

‘Don't bother, Mr Pettergree, on a day like today she'll have fingers like sausages. Do it later, when it cools down.'

Stan Hercules is waiting outside to take our photograph for the
Wycheproof Ensign
. And then Muriel, the priest's sister, is saying welcome to Wycheproof, Mrs Pettergree, and telling me about the dramatic society and the CWA and the Younger Set and tennis and how she won the Ladies' Nail Driving Competition at the Berriwillock Floral Ball until, finally, I am sitting in the back seat of Mr Ivers' car looking at my husband's neck, so red, in front of me.

‘I expect we'll see you in town soon, Mrs Pettergree,' Muriel shouts through the window, but she has to jump back quickly as we are off; Mr Ivers is keen to get away.

Our farm is on the Avoca River and Mr Ivers is our closest neighbour. He has maintained the land since the last farmer and his family walked off with only their suitcases and tickets on a ship to New Zealand – ‘regular rain, proper English soils'. I wonder what Mr Ivers thinks about the farm being taken up by a scientist and agricultural expert rather than an ordinary farmer.

The car has been sitting in the sun and I feel like I am being baked alive but the men don't remove their coats. Robert quizzes Ivers about local yields. We skirt around the tiny mountain and take the Boort Road out through the paddocks. A few miles on we branch off down a narrower track and Ivers turns and smiles at me shyly.

‘This is it then,' he says.

I smile back, dabbing at the sweat on my cheeks. At the start of a long driveway gum trees stand in a clump like monuments. Robert gets out to open the gate. The trunk of the nearest tree is as thick as the bodies of several men. At head height it splits into three separate prongs. Its delicate purple bark hangs in strips, a golden flesh shining underneath.

‘How old are these trees?' I ask Mr Ivers.

‘Not sure, missus. A hundred maybe, two hundred.'

As the car pulls away I imagine us inching up the paper on Robert's hand-drawn map. Inching towards the ‘J' for Jean. Robert reaches back and touches my arm when we pull up in front of the house as if to counteract any disappointment I might be feeling. But I like the plainness of the house. It is not unlike the cottage in the orchard – solidly square with two small windows each side of the door. The paint has faded from white to oily grey.

Ivers says that his wife Elsie has cleaned and aired for us and that he has moved most of the furniture back from where it was stored in the shed. He says there is even an old piano.

I imagine myself describing the house in a letter to my aunt – although we no longer write. ‘I have left my position on the Better Farming Train to marry an English Scientist. We have a farm in the Mallee with a small cottage.' I would need to say something about a cat. In letters to my aunt I always included a reference to cats. ‘I have recently rescued a stray cat, been feeding a cat for a friend, had to borrow a cat for mousing, was kept awake by a cat, or saw an especially large or beautifully patterned cat in my travels.'

Robert steps up onto the verandah, opens the front door and disappears inside. His boots reverberate on the floorboards. Ivers is leaning against the car, half looking at me. He has taken off his coat and I can see he is a careful man – belt and braces. I'm not ready to go into the house, although I know this is what I'm expected to do – to follow Robert. Instead I walk under an old peppercorn and along the side path to the backyard – bare dirt with a few mulgas. The house has a sloping broom brush verandah that dips low over the back door like a messy fringe. A slack wire fence holds in the wheat.